Manufacture of stockings



' g, 1943. J. GARRIG 2,313,294-

MANUFACTURE OF STOCKINGS Filed April 28, 1939 Patented Mar 9, 19432,313,294 MANUFACTURE OF'STOCKINGS I Jean Garric, Troyes, France; vestedin the Alien Property Custodian Application April 28, 1939, Serial No.270,679

In Luxemburg May 11, 1938 1 Claim.

The invention relates to the manufacture of stockings and other articlesor pieces knitted on Cotton frames and other similar machines. andrefers to the joining or uniting together, by seams, of articles, ofpieces, or of parts of knitted stockings, after having. with thispurpose in view, previously rendered nor -raveling the edge of one or ofboth the pieces, articles or parts of stockings intended to be unitedand fixed the one to the other, the non-raveling edge, that is. the edgeprovided with strong or secure loops, thus forming, for the saidpurpose, a true or secure selvedge.

It is known that, in order to obtain this uniting by seams of the edgesof pieces, artic es or of parts of knitted stockings together, andespecially in order to obtain, for example, the uniting of the edge ofthe foot to the heel, during the course of the manufacture of so-calledcomplete or combined stockings, which permits of the elimination ofre-looping or re-stitching (a costly operation and one which is,moreover, difiicult in the case of combined stockings made on old fiatknitting machines without divided needlebar), it is necessary totransform into selvedges the usually ravelable edge or edges of thepieces, articles or parts of knitted stockings (such as the commencementof the foot parts) to be joined together by a seam, by making the firstrow of same non-raveling.

For example, the first row of loops of a knitted piece, especially of apart of a stocking, has been rendered non-raveling, although for adifferent purpose, by effecting, before the formation of the completestitches of the said row, the transfer of one loop over two, from oneneedle over that following its neighbour, all the needles then havingone loop or mesh, and one mesh in two being transferred by two needles,by means of a special mechanism replacing or modifying the usualnarrowing mechanism and its motion and working before the formation ofthe loop, which excludes every possibility of renderin non-raveling anyrow of finished meshes or loops in a piece whil being knitted.

On the other hand, any row whatever of a piece of knitting, especiallyof a part of a stocking, may be rendered non-raveling, after itsformation, by using the known process of the transferring of one mesh orloop over two, from one needle over the following needle, one needlethus having two meshes while its neighbour has none, by means of theusual lace or openwork attachment or narrowing mechanism and the usualtransferring motion towards the right, or the left.

Now the rows of non-raveling meshes or loops obtained by these processesgive defective selvedges, in the sense that they render it diflicult toform seams, for example by means of a whipstitch machine, because of thefact that the said non-raveling selvedges are jagged and excessivelyextensible, the result of which is that, after two pieces have beenjoined or united together by seams, the appearance of the joining linebecomes too obvious, forming moreover a sort of openwork line.

The object of the present invention is to obtain, on Cotton frame orother similar machines, a selvedge which does not possess the faults ofthose obtained up to the present by" the known processes of makingnon-raveling a row of meshes a of a knitted article, piece or part of astocking, and, for this purpose, it has as its object a process whichconsists essentially in rendering nonraveling, after its formation, thewhole or part of a row of meshes or loops of a knitted piece, article orpart of a stocking, either at the beginning after having knitted one ortwo rows of meshes intended to be raveled or unroved, or during thecourse of knitting, after having made anynumber of rows, by the transfertowards the right or towards the left, of one loop over two, from oneneedle over that following its neighbour, by means of the lace oropenwork attachment or narrowing mechanism and of its .normal motion,the transferring motion being controlled however so as to have anamplitude of two needles instead of one only.

The transfer can also be made to the right over one part of *zthe rowand to the left over another part, either by operating with two separateparts of lace bars, the one transferring to the right, the other to theleft, or by operating with drums, setting on consecutively to the rightand to the left, the necessary transferring hooks or needles being movedinto action at each of the two movements of the mechanism.

Owing to this process there is obtained a straight, neat, firm selvedge,only slightly extensible, which permits of the easy formation on themachine of fiat and fine seams, and the uniting line with another piece,article or part of a stocking which results therefrom has a fullappearance and resembles the joining lines obtained by re-looping orre-stitching, the seam thus obtained being moreover as a rule more solidthan the re-loopingseam. In addition, the extensibility of the seam thusobtained can be .regulated, either by modifying the length of the row ofmeshes or loops intended to 'bezrendered non-traveling (the more thisrow of meshes is tightened the less extensible will be the selvedgeobtained), or by modifying the number 'or the size of the threads ofthis row of meshes.

In order to make the invention well understood, and by way of exampleofits practical application, the process which is the object of theinvention may be carried out by means of the lace or openwork ornarrowing mechanism, comprising lace or openwork bars or. drums, withtransferring needle bar plates, one needle in two being in action, thesebars, drums or plates transferring by two needles, to the left forexample, in order to give a non-raveling row of loops, which, afterseparation of the prior rows, will finally give a straightsecureselvedge, of which the phases of the interlacing of the meshes are showndiagrammatically in the accompanying drawing, in which:

Fig. 1 shows the knitting before transferring; the two rows of loops ormeshes A and B may be those done either at the very beginning of theknitting or during the course of the knitting after the formation of anynumber of rows of meshes, these rows being intended to be raveled orcut, one single row being sufficient if necessary.

Fig. 2 shows the diagrammatic trace of the following row of meshes C,which 'is rendered non-raveling after the transferring of one mesh intwo by two needles, which transferring changes the shape of the meshestransferred and of those not transferred, as well as the meshes of thepreceding row "B, it being understood that this diagrammatic trace showsan excess of length of thread over that necessary inreality.

Fig. '3 shows thefinal interlacing of theimeshes 5 of the non-ravelingrow C forming the selvedge after knitting of the subsequent rows D ofthe piece, the two rows A and B having been removed by raveling orcutting.

These rows A and B may moreover be removed after the knitting of thepiece; for example, for, stockings, after the bunching up of the sidesof the leg for the knitting of the heel (in the case of machines havingneedle guide bars with fixed centre part) or after the complete knittingof the stocking, before the assembly'of the heels on to the feet (in thecase of machineshaving needle guide bars with moving centre part, ableto knit the heels after the legs, before knitting the foot). "Thedrawing 20 shows the straight non-raveling selvedge, and as the wholeofthe thread of the loops of the selvedge is necessary for the interlacingof one needle to the other, the result is that thesaid selvedge isneither too jagged nor too long.

I claim:

The method of producing a flat non-raveling selvedge for parts of thesole of stockings on flat knitting frames, comprising completely forminga predetermined number of rows of 30 plain loops, then transferring bymeans of the usual narrowing machine each second loop of at least a partof a succeeding row to the following second needle, and raveling thefirst formed rows to exposethe row of transferred loops.

JEAN GABRIC.

